Tries: Lindop 2, Ashton 2, Holroyd, Thewlis, Tai
Warrington Wolves leapt to the top of Super League as they stunned Wigan Warriors at the Brick Community Stadium.
Wire ran in six tries, two each for Arron Lindop and Matty Ashton, as they handed Wigan a first home defeat in 18 matches – a run dating back to May 2023 – and earned their biggest Super League winning margin in games against the Warriors.
Winger Liam Marshall responded to Lindop’s early converted try to make it 6-4 after 13 minutes, but Wigan, still crucially without injured Wembley star Bevan French, and beaten by struggling Hull last week, were this time in for an even bigger disappointment.
Warrington crossed twice more before the break through Ashton, who intercepted to go the length of the field, and Adam Holroyd. Then four more tries followed in the second half.
Ashton and Lindop each added a second and Thewlis went almost the full length too from an interception, to which he added the fifth of his six conversions.
After Thewis hit the post with a late penalty attempt, Rodrick Tai’s late score, improved by Thewlis, earned a 36-point winning margin to eclipse Wire’s 40-10 win at home to Wigan in 2016.
On a crazy night in central Lancashire, as St Helens also shipped 40 points at Leigh, the sheer size of Wigan’s defeat also cost them second place to Hull KR.
Although Matt Peet’s Warriors do still have a game in hand, and are on the same 28 points mark as Wire and Hull KR, they will be in third place when they play next on Thursday evening at home to Huddersfield.
Warrington return to action the following night at home to Hull KR, a game that would only be another meeting of the top two if Wigan lose again.
It was an error-strewn Wigan performance, from the moment Lindop pounced on Matt Dufty’s low kick to touch down inside the opening two minutes.
Marshall’s 26th try of the season equalled his previous best scoring season of 2017 to bringing up 600 points for Warriors. But Harry Smith failed to level as he pulled the conversion wide.
Then the hosts’ failure to deal with Ben Currie’s kick in the danger area allowed Wigan old boys Sam Powell and George Williams to combine with Josh Drinkwater to send Holroyd over.
Jack Farrimond’s loose pass was then intercepted by the galloping Ashton 10 metres from Warrington’s own tryline to earn Wire an 18-4 half-time lead – and any hopes of a comeback were extinguished four minutes into the second half when Lindop shrugged off Abbas Miski’s tackle to skip through for his second.
On a night when Wigan lost hooker Brad O’Neill, who had to be helped off with a knee injury, Ashton touched down again before the Thewlis interception try. And, even Dufty’s late sin-binning made no difference as Tai rounded it all off.
Post-match verdict
Wigan Warriors head coach Matt Peet:
“It’s a tough one to take. The scoreline doesn’t look good and there were aspects of our performance that certainly didn’t look good.
“Credit to Warrington, they executed much better than we did. Good contact, good defence on the edges to get the interceptions so credit where credit is due.
“I’m always confident in the group, the club and staff so nothing changes really. Confidence remains the same as always.
“It’s too early to say (about O’Neill) but whenever you see those ones you worry about it.”
Warrington head coach Sam Burgess:
“It’s a good night, it was a good win for us. I wouldn’t say it was special. It’s nice to win, of course, but we’re not going to get carried away with ourselves.
“We understand they had a couple of guys out who are key to their game so I accept that but we were really disciplined to stay at our game plan. I’m more pleased about that than anything else.
“It was a step forward in our game management. The job is simple in so many ways. You can overcomplicate it. They just got the job done. On the ball they did their all. They ran hard.
“Wigan were physical. They controlled us quite a bit in the first half with some field position and Harry Smith is a great kicker. They put us in some bad spots so we had to take our medicine but I was pleased we stuck at it for the whole game.”
Wigan: Eckersley; Miski, Farrell, Wardle, Marshall; Farrimond, Smith; Byrne, O’Neill, Thompson, Nsemba, Walters, Ellis.
Interchanges: Havard, Mago, Dupree, Hill, Hampshire.
Warrington: Dufty; J Thewlis, Tai, Lindop, Ashton; Williams, Drinkwater; Yates, Powell, Vaughan, Nicholson, Holroyd, Currie.
Interchanges: Musgrove, Crowther, Walker, Wood, Whitehead.